Vijay Iyer

Pianist Vijay Iyer learnt the tools of his trade primarily with Roscoe Mitchell and Steve Coleman. With the cooperative trio Fieldwork he experimented with freely improvised music, only giving it ad hoc structure and form when they played together. His music contains specific patterns that resemble germ cells from which rhythmic overlays and open sound clusters emerge, mostly following harmonic principles unlike those in modern jazz. Yet despite all this diversity and complexity, Vijay Iyer has retained a playfully naive approach to music: his improvisations are always boundlessly energetic and highly emotional.